House of Abraham: Lincoln & the Todds, a Family Divided by War

Historian Berry takes Abraham Lincoln's ""house divided"" to heart, detailing the president's own family fissions. The Todds, his wife's family, were longtime slaveholders, and their sympathies were split between the Union and the Confederacy during the war. The well-regarded Prichard reads Berry's tale of the Todds with long, significant pauses and a stentorian rigor. A taste of the old South's molasses creeps into Prichard's voice and into the respites he takes in the middle of a sentence, which often linger one beat longer than might be expected. Having recorded more than 450 audiobooks, Prichard knows that little tricks like these keep listeners on their toes, happily waiting for the next word or the next sentence. By stretching time out like taffy, Prichard manages to make it flow faster than it otherwise would. Simultaneous release with the Houghton Mifflin hardcover (Reviews, Sept. 3).